In halting English, a Moslem telegraph operator in the Middle East tapped out on the telex: "Is it correct Kennedy killed pis?" When New York replied, "Yes, an hour ago," the Moslem signed off, "How sorrowful bad."
As the shadow of the news spread across the world, it was received everywhere with stunned disbelief. The Empress of Iran broke into tears, as did the President of Tanganyika, and countless anonymous men and women. Along Rome's Via Veneto grief sounded operatic. "E morto!" people called to one another, and at a cocktail party the guests put down their glasses and began to recite the Lord's Prayer.
Wherever monarchs still ruled—in the United Kingdom, in Jordan—formal court mourning was proclaimed. Hardly a nation in the world failed to order the rites of tolling bells and lowered flags. Theaters and sports arenas closed down on individual impulse. With the news of Kennedy's death, a Viennese ice show halted in mid-performance; in Belgium, a six-day bicycle race was interrupted; in distant Nepal, the ceremonial opening of a leprosarium was postponed.
Everywhere, bars, cafes and restaurants emptied long before closing time. Strangers spoke to each other in short, simple phrases—"Poor Jackie," or "How awful," or "It can't be true." The phones of Americans abroad never ceased ringing, as foreign friends and acquaintances —or even total strangers—called to offer sympathy. The streets in front of U.S. embassies were jammed with mourners who stood in line for hours to write their names in books of condolence. Some brought flowers, but many searched out an American diplomat merely to shake his hand.
Monstrous Act. One by one the statesmen joined the chorus of commiseration. As Big Ben tolled every minute for one hour (a gesture normally reserved for deaths in the royal family), Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home said: "There are times when the mind and the heart stand still." From Sir Winston Churchill came a statement: "This mon strous act has taken from us a great statesman and a wise and valiant man."
The words still seemed to carry the old, sibilant indignation of the ancient lion. Liberia's President William Tubman cabled: "The urn of grief has been opened and is being filled with the tears of friends the world over." Israel's David Ben-Gurion only asked: "Why, why?"
Almost by reflex, people rushed to disclaim even remote complicity in the murder. "Thank God it wasn't a Negro," said a Negro in Toronto. Many others insisted on reading into the event their own political passions. Statesmen in Africa, Asia and elsewhere insisted that the deed must have been done by a racist, and that Kennedy was a martyr like Lincoln or Gandhi. And Nehru could not resist remarking that the murder gave evidence of "dark corners in the U.S., and this great tragedy is a slap for the concept of democracy."
Golden Boy. The mourning voices first of all were for the President of the United States, regardless of his name or identity. For in a sense far beyond daily foreign policy squabbles, he is to much of the world the protector of the weak, the benefactor of the poor.